AOL Enhances ONE by AOL: Publishers’ Unified Video Platform with Out-Stream and SideView

Robert Leon, Head of AOL Publisher Product Commercialization and Solutions

March 25, 2016

New video features add to highly customizable, premium viewing experiences that extend monetization opportunities for publishers, including COMPLEX and USA TODAY Sports Media Group

With spending on digital video advertising expected to hit nearly $7.5 billion this year, it is clear advertisers are continuing to put video at the center of their digital media plans.

AOL’s announcement of ONE by AOL: Publishers was a first step in streamlining publisher’s access to the influx of video spending in an overly complex ecosystem by providing holistic, tailored solutions for publishers – from audience engagement and analytics to content distribution and revenue management. Part of our goal with ONE by AOL: Publishers is to provide an end-to-end unified video activation platform that enables publishers to syndicate and distribute premium content, create new inventory, increase viewability and drive revenue with responsive, cross-device and customizable video players.

Today, we are excited to announce the latest developments with two video players that enhance viewing experiences and extend revenue opportunities for publishers: out-stream and in-line (with a new SideView feature).

Out-stream Player
Out-stream allows publishers to create new viewable video and content experiences, increasing engagement, boosting viewability and driving incremental revenue. The player lives in the body of the article and expands to reveal itself and starts playing only when over 50 percent of it is visible on screen. It pauses when under this limit and will reinitiate if the 50 percent threshold is met again. At the end of playback, the player will automatically collapse and hide from view, keeping the web page experience nice and clean.

A number of publishers are adopting ONE by AOL: Publishers’ out-stream player, including COMPLEX and USA TODAY Sports Media Group:

"We are thrilled to be a launch partner with AOL as they introduce their out-stream product to market,” said Scott Cherkin, EVP of Product and Business Development, COMPLEX. “We see it as a great opportunity to add even more video to our pages, which is hugely popular with our audience and an effective tool for our clients.”

“AOL has been one of our key technology partners, delivering a number of solutions that have supported our business over the years,” said Chris Pirrone, General Manager, USA TODAY Sports Media Group. “Innovations like out-stream give us greater flexibility in creating ad experiences that generate meaningful, incremental cross platform revenue.”

Additionally, out-stream is tightly integrated with ONE by AOL: Video, allowing publishers to more efficiently reach their monetization goals through programmatic sales channels without additional implementation.

In-Line Player with SideViewSideView is a new feature enhancement within ONE by AOL: Publishers’ in-line video player that allows a publisher’s audience to continue to freely explore the page while maintaining contact with video content in a viewable, non-disruptive session.

As viewers scroll, the video automatically resizes and pins itself elegantly to the side of your content at a location of your choosing, following the user yet never obstructing text. SideView maximizes viewability as video content remains on screen independent of audience behavior, ensuring delivery for campaigns billed on viewability. Internal testing of the feature yielded an average viewability rate of 90 percent.

Here is a live demo of the in-line player with SideView, and, today, SideView is now activated as a default across all video on AOL.com.

The in-line player with SideView is available for both advertising and editorial video content, allowing publisher brands to enhance their video experience for users. It also offers a robust suite of player controls and customizations, including player location, player size, custom animations and mobile compatibility.

With these two players, AOL is continuing its commitment to publisher customers through innovative new features that drive better user engagement and create new, viewable video ad revenue opportunities. And, through further developments as part of ONE by AOL: Publishers, we continue to build solutions that simplify content discovery, monetization and analytics for the publishing ecosystem.